In the New Yorker...

[Front-Ranger]

The March 6th issue was quite funny, just not the "Shouts & Murmurs." The front cover was so funny and Anthony Lane's review of Cocaine Bear was hilarious.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Do read Jill Lepore on seed catalogs (March 20). Apparently she's quite fond of beets. 

[Front-Ranger]

In the new issue I read the article about the Oscar streaker. Surprised about how long it was but it turns out that the guy, named Robert Opel, had a pretty eventful life. Too bad he and so many of his generation are gone so soon.

Also surprising that the magazine reviewed Spare so favorably. They give a lot of credit to the ghostwriter for making the story almost Shakespearian in scope.

Finishing up the February 6 issue, I found another worthy article, "The First Composer" by Alex Ross. It's about Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval abbess in Germany. Her teachings, works of literature and music are surprisingly modern and applicable today. I'm going to rewatch the movie about her, "Vision" which is widely available on YouTube, Amazon Prime and Netflix.

[serious crayons]

Probably a 1099 form instead.

But if so, what's the difference between a staff writer and a contributor? I figured staff writer must come with a steady paycheck and benefits.

[serious crayons]

"Suburbs" may be relative.    Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is what I would call a small city, but back in the day it had three broadsheet newspapers, a daily morning, a daily evening, and a Sunday. The two dailies were not morning and evening editions of the same paper. They were two separate papers with two separate staffs, though they used the same newsroom. One family published all three papers. (They also owned a local radio station and the local TV station.) The morning paper was Democrat, the evening paper Republican; I think the Sunday paper was non-partisan. I don't remember what the staffing was for the Sunday paper, but it was independent of the dailies; my high-school journalism teacher, the man who taught me to write, was a sports writer for the Sunday News.

It's been years now that the dailies have been collapsed into one paper that in terms of size is much smaller than the old papers. They print op-eds that are both liberal and conservative.

Wow, three papers for a city of less than 60,000! Similar situation here, though the city is bigger. Papers were owned by the same family and in the same building (though the Sunday paper was part of the morning paper). I think they merged in 1981. Similar thing with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, though I'm not sure what year they merged. Early to mid-'80s, I think.

Don't all papers run both liberal and conservative op-eds, but go one way or another in their editorials? Both of the papers I've worked for lean liberal in their editorials, but I remember the Times-Picayune scandalized everybody by endorsing George H.W. Bush. Ha -- little did we know how great George H. W. Bush would look someday!

[Front-Ranger]

But if so, what's the difference between a staff writer and a contributor? I figured staff writer must come with a steady paycheck and benefits.

This from Quora might shed a little light on the subject:
"What would the salary for a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine be?

In the early-to-mid-aughts, Dan Baum received an offer of $75K/year for 30,000 published words. He was able to get this bumped to $90K/year in return for exclusivity[1]
. I?m not sure this sheds much light on what the average salary would be for a New Yorker staff writer, but it?s a data point, anyway."

[serious crayons]

This from Quora might shed a little light on the subject:
"What would the salary for a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine be?

In the early-to-mid-aughts, Dan Baum received an offer of $75K/year for 30,000 published words. He was able to get this bumped to $90K/year in return for exclusivity[1]
. I?m not sure this sheds much light on what the average salary would be for a New Yorker staff writer, but it?s a data point, anyway."

Right, I saw the salaries listed somewhere and they were similarly unimpressive, considering the prestige of the position. Anyway, if they get a regular salary they'd be a w-2 employee, unless they're working under an independent-operator contract of some kind. The freelance contributors paid by the piece would get 1099s.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Don't all papers run both liberal and conservative op-eds, but go one way or another in their editorials? Both of the papers I've worked for lean liberal in their editorials, but I remember the Times-Picayune scandalized everybody by endorsing George H.W. Bush. Ha -- little did we know how great George H. W. Bush would look someday!

That I wouldn't know. My point is, back in the day, the Lancaster papers didn't.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Right, I saw the salaries listed somewhere and they were similarly unimpressive, considering the prestige of the position. Anyway, if they get a regular salary they'd be a w-2 employee, unless they're working under an independent-operator contract of some kind. The freelance contributors paid by the piece would get 1099s.

Isn't that part of the pay package? "We're not going to pay you a whole lot, but, hey, you're working for The New Yorker!" 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always read Ben Taub, but I gave up on his piece in the March 6 issue. I thought it might be an interesting "procedural," but it wasn't. It was just too long and too complicated.